


Worries

by mak5258



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:07:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26176951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mak5258/pseuds/mak5258
Summary: Mrs. Holmes worries about her youngest son.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

Miranda Holmes was worried about Sherlock. She usually was—she _always_ was—but this was different.

They’d stopped by for a visit. Sherlock had been out to see Eurus the first Monday of every month since they’d discovered she hadn’t died in that fire, and he’d agreed to give them an update on her: Why he hadn’t just said over the phone that she was still not speaking, Miranda couldn’t guess. Actually, she half-believed he had just wanted to see them, and that was part of why she was worried.

Eurus, he said, was eating, sleeping and maintaining her own hygiene; she seemed to recognize when she was being spoken to and understand what was said, but she would not respond. After his first visit those few months ago, he’d begun to bring his violin along. They played duets.

He’d made it his mission to connect with his little sister. She couldn’t tell if he sympathized with her, recognized how difficult it could be when cleverness set a person apart from the rest. There was a drive behind those monthly visits that plagued her, though. Almost a desperation she’d only ever seen in her son when he was struggling with addiction.

“Mycroft has promised us tickets to Wicked,” Siger said pleasantly. “He won’t join us, of course, and we know better than to ask you. But it’s a nice gesture. They’re box seats.”

Sherlock grunted, acknowledging that he’d heard. He’d barely moved since they’d all sat down, her and Siger on the couch and him in the chair facing the kitchen. At least he’d dressed. And he’d done them the courtesy of ignoring the messages pinging away on his phone as well as them.

“Sherlock,” Miranda started—Siger had brought up the theater, and that was his signal that he’d run out of small talk to try to draw their son out of his own mind with—but she was interrupted by the bang of the front door and a patter of footsteps coming up the stairs. “Are you expecting somebody, dear?”

Sherlock had turned toward her—or at least toward the door—but he merely raised a curious eyebrow.

A woman breezed in a moment later. She’d had a key to the front door and to his flat. She was petite. She had long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had a large square bag over her shoulder that had ST BART’S HOSPITAL stamped on it, and a HUMAN TISSUE sticker pasted on the side. Sherlock looked surprised to see her but not unhappy about it.

Interesting.

“Sherlock Holmes, I have been calling you all morning,” the woman said. She didn’t so much as glance at the sofa, simply shooting Sherlock a look and marching into the kitchen. “Do you know, I spend the _entirety_ of my Mondays filling out paperwork to sort out the mess you’ve made the week before. The whole Monday. Every week.”

Miranda couldn’t see into the kitchen, but she could hear the woman going through the fridge. She exchanged a look with Siger, and Sherlock scowled at them. Miranda could only smile at him.

“Could you, for once, note when you’re taking something out of the lab? Or even just send me a text so I can do it?” The refrigerator drawers rattled. “Did you know you have six feet of intestine in here?”

“It was for an experiment,” Sherlock said not quite defensively. He hadn’t moved from his chair, not even to stop her from disturbing his experiments or confiscating the contents of his fridge.

“What, how long does it take for human remains to turn to so much sludge in a crisper drawer?” she asked. Sherlock almost looked like he wanted to smile. “I’m going to put this in the sink to soak for a bit, and later _you_ will use bleach. Or I’m going to tell Mrs. Hudson you had a pickle jar full of eyeballs in her freezer.”

“Leave the eyeballs,” Sherlock instructed.

“No.”

Sherlock frowned, seemed like he wanted to pout and complain, but subsided.

She zipped her bag, then returned to the sitting room. For the first time, the woman seemed to realize Sherlock wasn’t alone.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

As usual, his friend assumed they were clients. Just like the first time they’d met John Watson. And again, Sherlock didn’t bother to correct her assumption or introduce them.

“Sherlock, don’t forget, John is dropping off Rosie at noon,” the woman said, her attention on him and her eyes direct. “Mrs. Hudson is visiting her sister, so you have to be here. He has his shift this afternoon and I’m not off work ‘til after four. I’ll be by then to spot you.”

She looked like she was going to leave, but then she stopped and rifled through her purse, producing a banana. She tossed it at Sherlock, and he caught it reflexively.

“Noon. Don’t forget,” she said, hitching her bags more securely over her shoulder. She turned to Miranda and Siger, then, smiling pleasantly. “Sorry again for the interruption.”

She left as quickly as she’d arrived, feet light and quick on the steps. As soon as she’d gone, Sherlock set the banana on the table next to his chair and turned to them, obviously bracing himself for their questions about the mystery woman.

“I like her,” Miranda said, taking Siger’s hand and squeezing it. “What’s her name?”

“Dr. Molly Hooper,” Sherlock said coolly. “My pathologist at Bart’s. She works in the morgue.”

Siger squeezed her hand back. Sherlock noticed their little nonverbal conversation and rolled his eyes, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. Whatever he’d been about to say, though, was interrupted by the ping of his phone. He glanced at the message, smirked, and began to peel the banana.

Maybe she didn’t have to worry about him so much after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Miranda invited Mycroft around for lunch before they’d even left London that afternoon. Even though he was being conciliatory and apologetic for keeping Eurus from them, she knew full well that he’d put her off for as long as he felt he could.

It was just over a month after she’d encountered Dr. Molly Hooper that Miranda was able to ask her eldest about the woman. No matter how withdrawn he sought to appear, Mycroft always had a keen sense for his little brother and those he chose to associate with. It was probably a hang-over from his childhood inability to protect Sherlock from Eurus, but Miranda put that thought aside (as she always had).

“A woman stopped by Sherlock’s while we were last visiting,” Miranda said after they’d eaten. Siger had gone off for his walk—if Mycroft had chosen to accompany him, Siger would’ve been the one asking after Dr. Hooper—and left the pair of them in the kitchen. Mycroft sat at his customary spot by the counter, watching her tidy up the dishes just as he had since he’d been a little boy. “A pathologist from St. Bart’s.”

“Yes. Molly,” Mycroft said.

“Right. Molly,” Miranda said. She tried not to give away how much it shocked her that Mycroft would use the woman’s first name. He still tended to call John ‘Dr. Watson’ even after so many years. “Will you tell me about her?”

Mycroft raised his eyebrows and sat back. He was thinking, but she couldn’t tell if he was considering her motives for asking or trying to recall the particulars of Dr. Molly Hooper.

“Educated at Cambridge, hired by St. Bart’s directly. Her primary role is as pathologist and medical examiner, though she does teach as well. She’s been there for not much over a decade; she’s worked with Sherlock since he began frequenting the hospital.” He sipped his tea. “Only child of two teachers. They divorced when she was in primary school; she lived with her father. He died just after she’d finished medical school. Her mother died years before that, though I’m not sure she’s aware; they weren’t close following the divorce.”

“I meant about _her_ , Myc. Not her background or CV.” Miranda smiled at him gently. She appreciated the information, of course, but what she’d really wanted to know was how long she’d had the key to Sherlock’s flat and what earned her the distinction of being ‘Molly’ to Mycroft rather than ‘Dr. Hooper.’

“She wears horrible jumpers?” Mycroft said, sounding at a bit of a loss. “I know for a fact she makes enough money to dress however she pleases, so it is constantly appalling that she chooses those patterned bits of kitsch.”

Miranda hummed so that he’d know she was listening, though she didn’t dare say anything and interrupt him.

“Mummy,” he said, his tone changed enough that she turned around to look at him again. Surprisingly, he was looking directly at her and he looked… vulnerable. “Eurus put John Watson down a well for the audacity of being Sherlock’s friend, but she’d wired Molly’s flat with enough military-grade explosives to level the block.

“I’ve told Sherlock she was bluffing, of course. He has no idea.

“I had one of my proxies buy the building for redevelopment; my involvement is entirely clear of the paperwork, there’s no way they’ll trace it back to me. But the fact is that they’ve been slowly taking the building apart in these months, and though we’ve found no further explosives, it appears several electrical projects were botched so that, even if Sherlock did outwit Eurus’s horrid test, Molly’s building would’ve succumbed to electrical fire in the near future anyway.”

“You think she did such a thorough job of it?” Miranda asked. Her heart was thudding uncomfortably in her chest, the way it always did when she allowed herself to think of the horrible things her too-bright daughter did.

“Eurus always did have insight into Sherlock that even I missed,” Mycroft said thoughtfully. “I think, judging by the level of violence direct her way, Molly will be my sister-in-law if Sherlock can convince her to forgive him.”

“Forgive him?” Miranda asked, setting aside the prospect of one of her children actually condescending to something so mundane as marriage.

“Well, he _is_ Sherlock. He’s horrid.”

“Don’t talk about your brother that way,” Miranda said, more habitually than anything else.

Mycroft hummed, dismissing the chastisement, and wandered around the counter to prepare a fresh pot of tea. Miranda returned, thoughtfully, to the dishes. 


End file.
